The Templar Legacy

The ancient order of the Knights Templar possessed untold wealth and absolute power over kings and popes until the Inquisition, when they were wiped from the face of the earth, their hidden riches lost. But now two forces vying for the treasure have learned that it is not at all what they thought it was, and its true nature could change the modern world.

The Columbus Affair: A Novel

Pulitzer Prize-winning investigative journalist Tom Sagan has written hard-hitting articles from hot spots around the world. But when a controversial report from a war-torn region is exposed as a fraud, his professional reputation crashes and burns. Now he lives in virtual exile - haunted by bad decisions and the shocking truth he can never prove: that his downfall was a deliberate act of sabotage by an unknown enemy. But before Sagan can end his torment with the squeeze of a trigger, fate intervenes....

The Amber Room

Life is good for Atlanta judge Rachel Cutler. She loves her job, loves her kids, and remains civil to her ex-husband, Paul. But everything changes when her father, a man who survived the horrors of World War II, dies under strange circumstances and leaves behind clues to a secret he kept his entire life...a secret about something called the Amber Room.

The Third Secret

Fatima, Portugal, 1917: The Virgin Mary appears to three peasant children, sharing with them three secrets, two of which are soon revealed to the world. The third secret is sealed away in the Vatican, read only by popes, and not disclosed until the year 2000. When revealed, its quizzical tone and anticlimactic nature leave many faithful wondering if the Church has truly unveiled all of the Virgin Mary's words, or if a message far more important has been left in the shadows.

The Romanov Prophecy

In 1917, Nicholas II, Tsar of Russia, was executed by revolutionaries. Now, in response to the collapse of the country's economy, the people have voted to instate a new Tsar, one who will be chosen from the descendents of Nicholas II. But a powerful group of Western businessmen want to make sure he is a candidate they can control, and hire African-American lawyer Miles Lord, with his knowledge of Russian language and history, to check the background of their chosen man.

Spartan Gold: Fargo Adventures, Book 1

In 1800, while crossing the Pennine Alps, Napoleon Bonaparte and his army stumbled across the pillars. Unable to transport them, Napoleon created an inscrutable map on the labels of twelve bottles of rare wine. When Napoleon died, the bottles disappeared - and the gold pillars were lost once again. Treasure-hunters Sam and Remi Fargo are exploring the Great Pocomoke Swamp in Delaware when they are shocked to discover a German U-boat. Inside, they find a bottle taken from Napoleon's 'lost cellar'.

Power Down: Dewey Andreas, Book 1

There was one factor that the terrorists didn’t take into account when they struck the Capitana oil platform off the coast of Colombia - slaughtering much of the crew and blowing up the platform - and that was the Capitana crew chief, Dewey Andreas. Dewey, former Army Ranger and Delta, survives the attack, rescuing as many of his men as possible. But the battle has just begun....

American Assassin

Before he was considered a CIA superagent, before he was thought of as a terrorist's worst nightmare, and before he was both loathed and admired by the politicians on Capitol Hill, Mitch Rapp was a gifted college athlete without a care in the world...and then tragedy struck.

Memory Man

Amos Decker's life changed forever - twice. The first time was on the gridiron. A big, towering athlete, he was the only person from his hometown of Burlington ever to go pro. But his career ended before it had a chance to begin. On his very first play, a violent helmet-to-helmet collision knocked him off the field for good and left him with an improbable side effect - he can never forget anything.

The Book of Fate

In six minutes, one of us would be dead. None of us knew it was coming. So says Wes Holloway, a once-cocky and ambitious presidential aide, about the day that changed his life forever. On that Fourth of July, Wes put Ron Boyle, the chief executive's oldest friend, into the presidential limousine. By the time the trip came to an end, Wes was permanently disfigured, and Boyle was dead, the victim of a crazed assassin.

The Demon Crown: A Sigma Force Novel

A construction project beneath the National Mall reveals a dark secret dating back to the Civil War, something buried by a cabal of scientists, led by Alexander Graham Bell, who helped found the Smithsonian Institution. It is a cache of bones, preserved in amber, protecting a wonder like no other, the very secret of life after death. But such a prize is guarded by a horror out of the ancient past, a horror that still lives in the marrow of those bones - and is now free again.

The Gray Man

Court Gentry is known as The Gray Man - a legend in the covert realm, moving silently from job to job, accomplishing the impossible, and then fading away. And he always hits his target. But there are forces more lethal than Gentry in the world. And in their eyes, Gentry has just outlived his usefulness. Now, he is going to prove that for him, there's no gray area between killing for a living-and killing to stay alive.

Beijing Red: A Nick Foley Thriller, Book 1

When ex-Navy SEAL Nick Foley travels to China to find purpose and escape the demons of his past, he instead stumbles into a conspiracy his Special Forces training never prepared him for. A mysterious and deadly outbreak ravages a remote area of western China, and Nick finds himself the lead suspect in a bioterrorism investigation being conducted by China's elite Snow Leopard counter-terrorism unit.

Sandstorm: A Sigma Force Novel, Book 1

An inexplicable explosion rocks the antiquities collection of a London museum and the race begins to determine how it happened, why it happened, and what it means. Lady Kara Kensington's family paid a high price in money and blood to found the gallery that now lies in ruins. Her search for answers leads Kara and her friend Safia al-Maaz, the gallery's curator, into a world they never dreamed existed.

Orphan X

Do you need my help? It was always the first question he asked. They called him when they had nowhere else to turn. Raised and trained as part of a top-secret programme, he was sent to the worst places in the world to do things his government denied any knowledge of. Then he broke with the programme and disappeared. But now someone's on his tail. Someone who knows he was once known simply as Orphan X.

Any Means Necessary: A Luke Stone Thriller, Book 1

When nuclear waste is stolen by jihadists in the middle of the night from an unguarded New York City hospital, the police, in a frantic race against time, call in the FBI. Luke Stone, head of an elite, secretive department within the FBI, is the only man they can turn to. Luke realizes right away that the terrorists' aim is to create a dirty bomb, that they seek a high-value target, and that they will hit it within 48 hours.

Zero Day: John Puller, Book 1

John Puller is a former war hero and now the best military investigator in the U.S. Army’s Criminal Investigative Division. He is a loner with few possessions by preference, but he has an indomitable spirit and an unstoppable determination for finding the truth. His father was the most decorated U.S. Marine in history, but now resides in a nursing home far from his battlefield glory. Puller’s older brother, also a military vet, is serving a life sentence in Leavenworth Penitentiary. Puller is called out to a remote, rural area far from any military outpost to investigate into the brutal murder of a family....

Angels and Demons

World-renowned Harvard symbologist Robert Langdon is summoned to a Swiss research facility to analyze a cryptic symbol seared into the chest of a murdered physicist. What he discovers is unimaginable: a deadly vendetta against the Catholic Church by a centuries-old underground organization, the Illuminati. Desperate to save the Vatican from a powerful time bomb, Langdon joins forces in Rome with the beautiful and mysterious scientist Vittoria Vetra.

Tier One

John Dempsey's life - as an elite Tier One Navy SEAL named Jack Kemper - is over. A devastating terrorist action catapults him from a world of moral certainty and decisive orders into the shadowy realm of espionage, where ambiguity is the only rule. His new mission: hunt down those responsible for the greatest tragedy in the history of the US Special Ops and bring them to justice.

The Last Templar

As the burning city of Acre falls from the hands of the West in 1291, a young Templar knight, his mentor, and a handful of others escape to the sea carrying a mysterious chest. In present day Manhattan, four masked horsemen dressed as Templar Knights steal a strange device. In the aftermath, an FBI investigation is led by anti-terrorist specialist Sean Reilly. Soon, he and archaeologist Tess Chaykin are drawn into the dark, hidden history of the crusading knights.

The House of Secrets

When Hazel Nash was six years old, her father taught her: Mysteries need to be solved. He should know. Hazel's father is Jack Nash, the host of America's favorite conspiracy TV show, The House of Secrets. Even as a child, she loved hearing her dad's tall tales, especially the one about a leather book belonging to Benedict Arnold that was hidden in a corpse. Now, years later, Hazel wakes up in the hospital and remembers nothing, not even her own name. She's told she's been in a car accident that killed her father and injured her brother.

The Hunter: Victor the Assassin, Book 1

Forget James Bond. Forget Jason Bourne. Forget Jack Bauer. Meet Victor. He's an assassin - a man with no past and no surname. But when a Paris job goes spectacularly wrong, Victor finds himself running for his life across four continents, accompanied by a woman too beautiful to trust, pursued by enemies too powerful to escape.

Publisher's Summary

Cotton Malone is back! Steve Berry’s new international adventure blends gripping contemporary political intrigue, Tudor treachery, and high-octane thrills into one riveting novel of suspense.

Cotton Malone and his 15-year-old son, Gary, are headed to Europe. As a favor to his former boss at the Justice Department, Malone agrees to escort a teenage fugitive back to England. But after he is greeted at gunpoint in London, both the fugitive and Gary disappear, and Malone learns that he’s stumbled into a high-stakes diplomatic showdown - an international incident fueled by geopolitical gamesmanship and shocking Tudor secrets.

At its heart is the Libyan terrorist convicted of bombing Pan Am Flight 103, who is set to be released by Scottish authorities for "humanitarian reasons". An outraged American government objects, but nothing can persuade the British to intervene.

Except, perhaps, Operation King’s Deception.

Run by the CIA, the operation aims to solve a centuries-old mystery, one that could rock Great Britain to its royal foundations.

Blake Antrim, the CIA operative in charge of King’s Deception, is hunting for the spark that could rekindle a most dangerous fire, the one thing that every Irish national has sought for generations: a legal reason why the English must leave Northern Ireland. The answer is a long-buried secret that calls into question the legitimacy of the entire 45-year reign of Elizabeth I, the last Tudor monarch, who completed the conquest of Ireland and seized much of its land. But Antrim also has a more personal agenda, a twisted game of revenge in which Gary is a pawn. With assassins, traitors, spies, and dangerous disciples of a secret society closing in, Malone is caught in a lethal bind. To save Gary he must play one treacherous player against another - and only by uncovering the incredible truth can he hope to prevent the shattering consequences of the King’s Deception.

I love this series and this book did not disappoint. I love the way Steve Berry weaves historical facts with his own ideas. It gives his books a great twist. I appreciate how Mr. Berry explains the places he visited for his research at the end of his book and separates the fact from fiction. I highly disagree with other reviewers regarding Scott Brick's narration. I think Mr. Brick is one of the best narrators and cannot imagine Cotton Malone with any other voice.

I simply love it and enjoy the thrill that arouse in me while listening the audio. I even consider to have it in movie version (if available). This is my first with the author, I love to venture another of his work.

I have listened to the entire Cotton Malone series from Steve Berry and looked forward to the next installment. I enjoy the interweaving of a historical narrative with a modern adventure. However, this book is simply ponderous. Though I normally enjoy Scott Brick, in this reading he sounds like a bored history professor. Overall, I would recommend the other books in the series and skip this one.

I listen to Steve Berry's novels because of his fascinating reinterpretations of history, and because Scott Brick, the master of the narrating art, preforms them.

This is a difficult book to describe. Was Queen Elisabeth I really a man? Is there a Tudor secret that when discovered would negate Great Britain's claim to Northern Ireland. Was the Libyan terrorist who took down Pan Am 103 really released for "humanitarian reasons" or something more sinister? Cotton Malone and a CIA agent are on the case as it gets more and more weird and dangerous. Malone's 15 year old son is also in this book.

What did you like best about The King's Deception? What did you like least?

2 hours to much with historical information. Certainly, a little is needed to support the premise of the story. However, every marriage and offspring in English history is overkill. Other than that a solid story line. Scott Brick always a solid read.

What was your reaction to the ending? (No spoilers please!)

Expected

Which character – as performed by Scott Brick – was your favorite?

Ian

Could you see The King's Deception being made into a movie or a TV series? Who should the stars be?